Chapter Text
Transformations were always painful. They always had been and they always would be. He had long grown used to that. But something was new, something was wrong. His head felt foggy, his limbs heavy, and fresh cuts stung his flesh. The pain wasn’t foreign, but there was something that felt heavier, an ache deeper than ever before.
“We’ve got you, dear. Oh, you poor poor thing,” a voice cooed, familiar and comforting. He couldn’t place it, nor could he bother to look, his eyelids too heavy for him to keep open. A pair of arms draped around him, lifting him up for his feet to attempt to support him. His feet dragged on the ground, unable to assist.
His vision swam with the attempts to open his eyes, only seeing the blur of movement around him. A groan came from the back of his throat in a pitiful attempt to speak, rather a strangled cry. Remus could stand pain, he could stand the fresh cuts and tender muscles, but he could not stand whatever new had overtaken him. It bled into every second that passes and soon became all too much, leaving him limp and defeated in the arms carrying him.
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“Stay where you are, Remus. Best not to move after all of that.”
Remus Lupin shifted uncomfortably, the sounds of a woman speaking filtering in as he woke. He knew the voice well, but he needed to take a moment to recall who it belonged to. Rather, he had to take a moment to recall anything.
The memory of the previous night trickled in slowly, unsure and dream-like. In the haze clouding his thoughts, he felt as if he were missing something. Remus could blame his transformation, as he was always a bit sluggish afterwards. Even so, he fought to remember.
It didn’t take long for the reality of the night to crash upon him, a wave seeming to drown him in only a beat.
Severus knew. Somehow, he knew and he had done something about it. Though blurred and unsure, Remus could remember spells flying from wands, the magic hitting where it had been intended to go. It had been Severus’ wand, had it not? Spells had come from other directions too, other voices had been shouting and calling. Had James or Sirius been there? Peter? Had the spells come from them?
There was a foul taste coating his tongue, sticky on his teeth. He knew it wasn’t just residual magic. It was blood, thick and not his own. His stomach twisted, the taste of vomit rising in his throat.
Remus opened his eyes slowly, taking the advice of Madame Pomphrey, but fighting the urge to scream as the first thing to leave his mouth. He tried to remember what happened in full, something sickening, something bad, but what more was he missing?
“What did I do?” he croaked, shutting his eyes once more. A pitying sigh came from across the room, though he could hear her footsteps approaching.
“We have it all taken care of, Remus. The situation with Mr. Black is being handled properly.”
“Sirius?”
The name didn’t make sense and seemed out of place; how was he involved? His head swam from the ache over everything, but he couldn’t make sense of what Madame Pomphrey had meant.
“Yes, dear. I knew we should have been careful about who knew. It all starts with one choice to tell someone and then that someone tells someone else and then on and on. I told you, Remus,” she tutted, shaking her head as she moved to his side to rewrap cuts trailing along his arms.
Slowly and horribly, the pieces fell into place.
He knew how Severus found out. It had all been Sirius.
Sirius Black was the boy who he had loved. Sirius was the boy he had kissed, and then felt guilty for kissing, but liked it too much to stay guilty. Sirius Black was the boy he loved with every bit of himself.
As the realization settled into his skin, Remus wanted nothing more than to crawl out of his body, to be able rid himself of what he now understood.
The love he carried so willingly for Sirius was gone and he knew it, in spite of all he didn’t know. He didn’t feel empty without it, but it had been replaced. Anger, white and hot, had swallowed him whole without a moment of hesitation.
“Can I-…Can I go back to the dorms?” Remus spat out, his lips curled.
Madame Pomphrey sighed, shaking her head at him. If every part of him was not drowning in his anger, then he would have been able to sense that was exactly what she was trying to prevent. Remus found he could only pull his arms away from Madame Pomphrey, his eyes drawn tight shut once more in a manner of defiance..
“Oh, honey. Just a few more hours and then I can clear you to go back to your dorm. Does that sound alright?” she cooed, resting a hand on his arm despite his efforts. He gave a small grunt of acknowledgement in return, his lips drawn together. He didn’t let himself speak, he knew he couldn’t. If he did, all the words that were meant to be held onto would fall out and spill all around him. He would be a mess for someone to take care of, though they hadn’t been the one to make the mess at all.
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“What the fuck?!” The door slammed against the wall behind Remus as he walked in, causing the dark haired boy sitting in the room to snap his head up. Had he just been waiting for him? Sirius laying around anticipating him to storm in just as he had?
“Moony, please-“ Sirius started, getting up from his bed. He took a cautious step towards Remus, in which Remus took a step back to counter him. But Remus shattered the safe distance that had been between them for only a moment, slamming him against the wooden frame of a bed . His arm pressed tightly against Sirius’ throat, their faces close, but far from intimate. Sirius let out a yelp as his back hit the post, his eyes searching Remus’ frantically. He offered no warmth in his gaze.
“Please?! Really, Sirius?! Don’t ask anything of me! You do not get to! You don’t get to call me Moony, or my name, and you don’t get to beg me for forgiveness! You do not get to expect me to forgive you!” Remus’ shouted, his spit landing on Sirius’ cheeks.
“Moony, just listen!” Sirius attempted to croak out, his voice dying as Remus only pressed his arm harder to silence him.
The grace of being gentle was something that had never come easily to Remus, and somehow Sirius had always found a way to draw it out of him. Soft touches and warm looks, all part of that unspoken kindness. But it was gone now, undoubtedly. Gone when Sirius had decided to show the world what Remus had so delicately trusted him with.
Remus hissed back, his words laced with a livid rage, “Listen? Why should I listen?!”
Remus had always made an effort to only give the best of him, to work so hard to deny the side that held the bitterness, now clawing its way out of his throat. His anger had belonged to the wolf and to the fault of the full moon for so long. But no one was at fault here, except for the boy in front of him; and the rage no longer was the wolf’s, but his, raw and exposed. As little room as he had, Sirius visibly recoiled from him.
Sirius hadn’t thought of what would become of them in the fallout of his actions. Or maybe he had. Was that all what this was for? To simply make him angry, to play some cruel sick joke on him? Who had Remus fallen in love with, if it were not the caring and playful boy he thought he knew so well? He knew Sirius could be cruel, all the marauders could. Should have he expected to become the subject of their brutality?
“Please, Remus! Just let me explain!” Sirius spluttered, his eyes filled with a kind of desperation that made Remus’ skin itch in disgust. He didn’t get to act desperate, not after what he had done. Remus pulled away briskly, turning from the pathetic sight of Sirius. He would know eventually that his pain ran deeper than anger or disgust, but there he stood, bathed in resentment. Sirius drew his fingers up to his throat quickly, his fearful gaze flicking up to meet Remus’. Was Sirius afraid of him now, after everything?
“Then explain! Justify what you’ve done!” hollered Remus. There was some part of him, in spite of all else, that pleaded for Sirius to give an actual explanation; some part of him pleaded to listen and forgive. But that was only a part of him, and he had learned to ignore the worst parts of himself years ago.
Sirius opened his mouth to speak, but it was a deafening silence that overtook the room instead of his voice. They stared, waiting for something that seemed to never come.
“Give me a fucking explanation!” Remus seethed, his voice loud without care or caution of who would hear. Sirius had risked everything Remus had, so what more was there to lose if someone overheard?
Still, Sirius remained silent, the space between them growing with every passing breath. It was almost pitiful to think of the memories in which he had once kissed the same lips that were now absent from anything at all.
Suddenly, Remus’ wand was directed at Sirius, devoid of any affection. Sirius Black would not beg to speak, only to fill the room with a pathetic silence.
“Fucking speak, Sirius!” Remus’s fingers trembled through the grip on his wand, though it was not out of fear. Remus’ mouth opened to form a spell, a curse or a hex, even a possibility of something worse, he didn’t know. All Remus could think of with his wand aimed at the boy he had fallen so profoundly for was that he should have never loved him. If he hadn’t, it would have never gotten them there.
“It was meant to be a prank! On Severus!” Sirius’ voice rang out impetuously. Remus didn’t lower his wand. Instead he found himself taking a step forward, anger drumming through him at the sickening response that had fallen from Sirius’ mouth. This time, it was Sirius taking a wavering step away from Remus.
“A prank? You think any of this is funny, Sirius?! Laugh then, go on, laugh!”
Every small step Sirius took to back away from him, every inch that his hand was reaching for his own wand out of caution, every time his eyes widened as Remus only grew louder, Remus noticed.
“Where is the humor in this, Sirius?! What did you really think would happen! A pat on the fucking back?! You could have done anything, anything else! And yet, here we are, because you forgot that you loved me!”
“I do love you, Remus!” Sirius cried out, his words pained with what Remus could only assume was some version of guilt. He couldn’t care if Sirius was guilty. Afterall, he should be.
“Not anymore! You’ve lost the right to love me! You don’t get to pull your sick version of a prank and expect that you have any right to love me! Rather any right to me at all!”
“Remus, please! I didn’t know!”
“Oh, you didn’t know?! You really didn’t know that it would end up like this?!” His words came out bitter, his throat was hoarse from the amplitude he yelled. He refused to come to a standstill in his anger and there was no remorse he could feel for Sirius.
“I thought- I thought that-” Sirius stuttered over his words and Remus found himself unable to look at him any longer. He turned hastily, moving to allow his hand to pull at the door handle, needing an escape desperately. Sirius called out once more, “Moony, I thought-”
Remus cast a glance over his shoulder, the air between them filled with hostility neither of them had become acquainted with before, “No, Sirius! You didn’t think! You didn’t think that this is how things would come to an end, but it is! You never fucking think! I hope you’ve found something funny in your God awful version of a prank!”
The door shut behind him thunderously, his footsteps falling hard upon the stairs and descending down to the common room. He needed to leave, to get out, to get away. Would Sirius follow him, come trailing after him with another feeble attempt at an apology?
In the midst of the storm that seemed to surround him, his eyes met with James Potter. Funny and caring friend, but was he now? He had always been closer to Sirius after all. Peter sat next to him at the table where they played wizards chess. Remus stood still for only a moment while their game sat abandoned, their eyes tracing over him.
“Remus-”
“Did you know?” Remus croaked, cutting James off. The look he got back was a pitying one, the type of look a stray dog would get. That must have been what Remus looked like to them, just some stray dog with an owner who hadn’t cared enough. They had known, then.
He didn’t wait for an answer. Remus needed to get out of that room, with James and Peter, who knew just as much as Sirius had. Maybe he wished the anger had dissipated when he had turned himself away from Sirius, but it was never that easy. Remus didn’t know if it would ever be easy to get rid of again.
A hand caught his shoulder before he could leave, giving a small tug, “Remus, we didn’t-”
“You fucking liar!”
James was thrown to the floor, his nose trickling with the beginnings of blood. Remus had punched him, his control lost. His knuckles throbbed with the impact it had made. Peter gasped and James looked at him with wide eyes, unsure of what had happened and what to do next. Remus swallowed with his own shock, but he couldn’t find it in himself to feel any repentance as James looked up at him. Was he expected to apologize to James now, even through what they had done to him?
He didn’t know where he was going when he shut the portrait behind him, just anywhere but there. James and Peter could pity him all they wanted and Sirius could feel guilty or not, Remus didn’t care.
He let his feet carry him, ending up in the astronomy tower mindlessly. Every step he had taken had drained him slowly, all that was there before leaving him empty. The hollowness in him could have been a comfort, had it not begun to fill with sorrow.
He slumped to the ground, his back pressed against the cold stone wall. It had grown to be dusk in the time he had been released from the infirmary. Despite the sleep he must have gotten, all due to Madame Pomphrey’s insistence, his body ached. It may have been just what he owed to the full moon from the night before, but did it matter with all that had happened?
Salty drops rolled down his cheeks and it took him a moment to realize he had begun to cry. His sobs were quiet at first, but as his chest started to heave and sobs raked through him. He gasped for air in between his agony, unable to bring himself to do anything else.
Had Sirius really only planned for a prank, something in the end that should have been harmless? There was nothing Remus could find funny, besides that maybe he should have learned long ago this was his lot of life; collapsed and falling upon himself to become a million ragged pieces.
Night came to greet him mournfully, a gentle light being cast upon him. The stars and the moon seemed so awfully close, as if they found company in each other, deep in their love. Remus had found comfort in that before, but that had been set ablaze and burnt to ashes by his star. For all Remus knew in his aching and deep suffering, the moon and the stars would be the closest he would ever get to loving Sirius Black again.
Just as his calm breaths had managed to return to him again through the slow setting of the sun, he crumbled. The pieces of himself he had only just begun to put together fell apart. His breath shook, terrified that deep hollowness settling in his skin wouldn’t come to an end. How was Remus expected to carry on if every little thing reminded him of all he had been cheated out of? Sirius had been so easy to love, the affection limitless. Yet, it had been made quite clear to him that limitless did have its limits, no matter how ruinous.
In the lonely quiet of the astronomy tower, Remus was the only thing to be heard for a while. When the door opened, he hadn’t heard, nor had he seen when the figure approached him briskly. With a careful touch to his shoulder, he came to senses immediately.
Remus brushed the hand from him quickly, words spitting from his mouth without thought, “Don’t fucking touch me!”
His bloodshot eyes glanced up, only to meet Peter’s. Guilt pulsed through him, but that guilt was quickly snuffed out. Remus looked down again, his teeth ground together. Peter didn’t say anything, not even when he slid down next to Remus, leaving space between them so as to not touch him.
The two boys sat there, both absent of the need to talk. Despite the destructive change that had forced its way into their life, the silence between them was familiar. Their small and quiet friendship, regardless of the anger and anguish that permeated through Remus, brought on an odd sense of comfort; in which it made Remus struggle to remain taciturn. Eventually, Peter spoke first.
“We didn’t know.”
His words caught Remus off guard, far from what Remus had expected. Then again, he supposedly hadn’t really expected anything.
“What?” Remus’s voice came out far more broken than intended, his eyes flicking to Peter cautiously.
Peter met his gaze, his voice held with steadiness, “We didn’t know…what Sirius was going to do, I mean.”
Remus’ mouth felt void of any response, entirely unsure of what he was supposed to say or feel. Instead, he simply just looked at Peter for a few seconds more before looking away to stare at the stars.
Peter did the same, continuing to speak, “James knew he was going to pull some prank, but we just assumed he would tell all of us the plan eventually. He always does, you know how it is. We only found out what was really happening at the last minute. Barely gave us enough time to get to you.” He scoffed as he finished, but Remus could hear the guilt hiding underneath it.
What was Remus to say to that? He had made up his mind to never forgive Sirius, but could he forgive them? Afterall, James nor Peter hadn’t truly done anything to wrong him. Rather, it was Remus that had fallen at fault in his outburst.
After another brief moment of silence, Remus found it in him to speak, “Did I hurt him?”
“Severus or Sirius?” Peter asked, their gazes still cast away from each other. It was easier that way, for the both of them.
Remus had done his best to forget Severus had been involved at all, his thoughts only set on reveling in the desolation of Sirius Black. In the end, his question had been in concern of neither.
“I meant James.”
“Oh, yeah. You didn’t, not really. It just startled him, both of us, really. We’ve never seen you so…um-”
“Violent?” Remus cut him off, providing the word Peter seemed to be lacking.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Peter give a brief nod, the quiet between them returning as there was nothing more neither of them could think to say. It was mRemus’ understanding that the two of them simply worked that way, except supposedly not for Remus anymore; not when words seemed to spill hatefully out of his mouth with little remorse for what would be the consequences and not when his fist had drawn blood from a friend who truly had cared.
“I’m not going to apologize.”
Peter gave another nod to this, “I don’t think anyone expects you to. Well, maybe whatever couple had been planning on snogging tonight.”
Remus looked at him, slightly startled. How did that have even the slightest relativity to anything? Peter turned to see his expression, letting out a laugh.
“Remus, we’re at the astronomy tower. You know that, right?”
“Of course I know that, but what does that have to do with me and some pair of gits?” Remus asked, almost defensively.
A beat passed, where it seemed Peter was waiting for Remus to figure out what should have been so obvious to him. Disappointedly, yet still in amusement, he let out a small sigh, shaking his head, “Really, Remus? The snogging spot.”
Out of all the emotions Remus had felt in the past few hours, he had yet to feel as much of a fool as he did then. He dragged his hands down his face dramatically, laughing meekly.
“By God, I must have scared them off,” he groaned.
“For your sake, I truly hope we have no business practicing hexes of any sort coming up. Someone ought to have it out for you for ruining their chances!”
“I have no doubt in that, any one would if their snogging session had been interrupted by some poor sobbing pillock,” Remus scoffed.
When the words fell from his mouth, their laughter was no longer comfortable. Remus had accomplished nothing but to remind them the warmth Peter had created was temporary. When the guilt rolled over him and his eyes flicked away from Peter, there was no sense of anger that allowed him to ignore it this time. He couldn’t even escape his own misery for more than a mere moment, and now had to be dragging someone else in the midst of it.
“Remus, I’m sorry we didn’t get there sooner. We should have stopped him before-”
“Please stop, Peter,” Remus spoke, cutting him off before Remus’ grief swallowed him whole once more.
“Alright, but we can talk about it if you want.”
“I don’t.”
“Okay.”
A calm breeze howled as the two boys simply just sat there, watching celestial bodies glow in their own untroubled elegance.
Eventually, it would get to be late and Peter would walk with Remus back to the dorms. He would offer quietly to switch beds. James and Peter slept on the ends, while Remus and Sirius had taken the beds in the middle; so Remus would gratefully accept the offer as it was the most he could do. Remus would draw his curtains taut and cast a silencing charm, drowning himself out as he began to cry again. But for now, Remus and Peter sat where they did, remaining quiet, yet comfortable in the steady presence of one another.